Tag: 3BL

Did you know that high-tech greenhouses are making it possible to grow tomatoes in the desert? And that innovative solutions adopted by food transporters are helping to reduce food loss and pollution in cities? Climate technology helps play a role in making food systems more sustainable and resilient.

In this episode of Healthy Spaces, host Dominique Silva talks with business leaders who are reimagining the way we grow and move food in ways that enhance access to healthy food while reducing environmental impact.

“Technology plays a vital role in building resilient food systems,” explains Raluca Radu, portfolio manager, Thermo King EMEA, Trane Technologies. “While technology today is widely spread in more advanced countries, we need to reach a point where technology is everywhere in order to reduce that massive 30 – 40% of food that is wasted.”

Listen to the full episode to learn how technology-enabled agricultural producer Pure Harvest Smart Farms is growing tomatoes, berries and melons in the UAE. And hear from Trane Technologies’ Thermo King leaders about how they are decarbonizing the cold chain to deliver produce with less environmental impact.

Guests:

Majed Halawi, VP Engineering & Construction, Pure Harvest Smart FarmsAdnan Javed, General Manager, Trane Commercial HVAC EMEA, Trane TechnologiesMtu Pugh, VP Strategic Marketing, Thermo King Americas, Trane TechnologiesRaluca Radu, Portfolio Leader, Thermo King EMEA, Trane TechnologiesHost: Dominique Silva, Innovation Initiatives Leader, Trane Technologies

Subscribe: Find all episodes on your favorite podcast platforms: 
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Learn more about the Healthy Spaces with Trane Technologies podcast.

This article was originally published by the Soft Commodities Forum, hosted by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD).

At the Soft Commodities Forum (SCF), we believe that achieving meaningful landscape-level transformation and acquiring the financing to get there require collaboration across food and agriculture value chains for standardized metrics. Collaboration as an entire industry enables increased impact by including more farmers, larger areas of land, and a higher volume of commodities. It also allows us to collectively understand a landscape’s profile and needs (including deforestation dynamics, availability of degraded pasturelands and remaining forest assets, and institutional maturity), a basis to deploy adequate solutions while learning together.

Both The Consumer Goods Forum’s Forest Positive Coalition (FPC) and the SCF share a responsibility to support supply chain transformation in commodity-producing landscapes. The SCF and FPC have therefore worked together over the past year to align on a common monitoring and evaluation framework to measure and report the impact of their landscape interventions.

The framework establishes a transparent progress reporting tool for value chain investors to assess and support the scaling of landscape solutions that generate nature- and climate-positive outcomes. Both the SCF and the FPC are supporting farmers in high-priority production areas, and by working together, can address common investment barriers collectively.

Collaboration on a common set of indicators is an important first step in the SCF and FPC shared responsibility to support the emergence of forest-positive landscapes. Both groups have identified a set of common indicators, pictured below, and will develop complementary metrics throughout 2023.

To develop this Monitoring and Evaluation Framework, the SCF and FPC are drawing upon best practices such as the International Social and Environmental Accreditation and Labelling Alliance (ISEAL) and Food and Land Use Coalition (FOLU) recommendations. Mobilizing and leveraging finance from both public and private sources is a key activity for these organizations, at both the global and national levels. FOLU Core Partners are well positioned to support the mobilization of larger-scale finance through several channels, including the Farmer First Clusters (FFC) initiative, launched during COP27 to support the transition to forest-positive land use management and commodity production.

Central to the FPC’s Strategy for Collective Action in Production Landscapes is the recognition that action beyond supply chains is needed to transform to forest-positive commodity production across the sector. Through its Landscape Reporting Framework, the CGF’s FPC monitors the progress of landscape initiatives to forest-positive, and by aligning priority indicators with the SCF, groundwork is laid for effective collaboration to realize positive landscape-level outcomes for climate, nature, and people.

The FPC and SCF are beginning the implementation of transformational landscape approaches in priority landscapes, and future collaborative efforts will aim to further mobilize supply chain actors, governments, and the finance sector in order to share lessons learned and scale up incentives at the landscape level.

Originally published in Owens Corning’s 2022 Sustainability Report

Although he has only been with Owens Corning for about one year, Derek Bian has already taken a very active role in our fight against climate change. Derek has been involved in the installation of solar panels at two facilities in China, Yuhang and Changzhou, as well as spearheading waste glass recycling projects in Yuhang and Kimchon, South Korea. In addition, Derek helps ensure that all our Asia Pacific track their energy consumption and follow local environmental regulations.

”It is very important for Owens Corning to set up sustainability goals and continue driving our approach in the long term.“

On Owens Corning’s unique approach to climate change

Owens Corning has a long history in our industry, and we are leading the way not only in business, but also in the development of new technologies, innovations, and more. We are now applying our efforts to sustainability and climate change — and we are now leaders in this area as well. As we improve our processes to optimize the effectiveness of our energy consumption and use more renewable energy, we can also lead the way in sustainability and combating climate change. Owens Corning can identify and drive sustainability projects based on our processes. Once a project is completed and verified as effective, it can be deployed on all similar processes across our enterprise. It can become a fixed part of the process, which makes our approach even more sustainable and comprehensive.

On what makes the fight against climate change a personal passion 

In addition to the attention that climate change has received in the media, I have noticed it more and more in my personal life. For example, when I was a child, it seemed that summers were not as they are now, and I could get cool simply by using an electric fan. Now, though, I feel like I need to keep the air conditioner on most of the time throughout the summer. When I became a father, I became even more concerned that in the future, my child will have to use the air conditioner even more throughout the year, which will only use more energy and bring about further climate change. This is how I became interested in climate change, and I believe it should matter to everyone.

On what individuals and companies can do to combat climate change

There are many things that people can do in their everyday life to reduce their environmental footprint and help fight climate change. My family and I sort our garbage for recycling, which helps manufacturers reduce their reliance on virgin raw materials. In addition, we try to be aware of our water usage and turn off our domestic appliances when they are not in use. At the same time, Owens Corning is setting a good example for how companies can do their part. Our processes require a high consumption of water and energy. Every improvement Owens Corning makes, even if they are small steps, can have a significant impact on our footprint.

Read more

Each June, Pride celebrations around the world recognize the history, contributions and importance of the LGBTQ+ community while creating space to advocate for a future defined by complete equality and inclusion.

Our Pride@Work Employee Resource Group (ERG) provides a dedicated space for supporting Alkermes LGBTQ+ community members and allies. Started in 2020 and now 200+ employees strong, Pride@Work works to create a safe and welcoming environment where all our employees can be their true selves. The group helps to set goals, establish and execute strategic initiatives, measure our progress and promote a culture of understanding and inclusion throughout our business. They also help the organization respond to important external social and cultural issues and events, like Pride Month.

In recognition of this month-long celebration, Pride@Work sponsored activities across our sites in the U.S. and Ireland:

Our Waltham team marched in the Boston Pride for the People Parade and hosted a happy hour open to all employees wanting to celebrate.In Ireland, we held a gender diversity webinar focused on ways to support LGBTQ+ youth and combat unconscious bias, microaggressions, stereotypes and the shame compass.Employees from Wilmington gathered to march in Cincinnati’s 50th annual Pride Parade.We hosted a company-wide webinar with Pride in our Workplace, which focused on the experiences of the LGBTQ+ community and provided practical advice for how to be an ally.Pride@Work members also raised the LGBTQ+ pride flag at each of our sites.

We look forward to more events through the remainder of the year, led by all our ERGs. Pride@Work is one part of our broader Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging (DIB) initiative, which spans our entire organization as we strive to further embed diversity throughout our operations. For more information about our ERGs and our commitment to DIB, please visit the page below.

Visit our Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging page

Originally published by Ericsson

Energy efficiency has risen to the top of everyone’s agenda in recent times, and it is an area in which Ericsson has been leading the way for many years – that vast experience is now being leveraged in Open RAN to address every aspect of the energy challenge.

By Frank Li, Strategic product manager in Cloud RAN Product line, responsible for vDU evolution and Massimiliano Fratini, Strategic Manager for Network Services

The technological innovations featured in Ericsson’s Cloud RAN portfolio help communications service providers (CSPs) to meet the need for increased capacity and exponential increases in data traffic with solutions that make the best use of the available resources – in short, doing more with less.

Ericsson has long been focused on energy efficiency and it is a core element of our strategy – where our power comes from and how it can be better managed are essential topics in discussions around sustainability, and that is a subject that is top of mind for everyone, not least for CSPs.

It is no longer enough for them to provide reliable and fast connectivity at the expense of everything else – that would be like turning on the heating in your home in winter and opening all the windows. These days our customers – and their customers – rightly expect us to make every effort to ensure that no energy goes to waste, and everything Ericsson does at the moment is governed by that demand, with sustainability in mind.

Energy efficiency and sustainability guide the development of every new product, solution and feature, as well as how we address our legacy technologies. Working in this ecosystem together with our customers and technology partners, this energy focus is helping us plot a path to significantly reduce the energy consumed while not compromising on service or performance.

These developments are driven by concrete goals – at Ericsson, our ambition is to be Net Zero across our value chain by 2040, and the first major milestone will be to reduce supply chain and portfolio in use emissions by 50% by 2030, and to be Net Zero in our own operations at the same time.

The key to reaching these goals, which are shared by many of our customers, is embracing technical innovation to do more with less – to get there, we will need more capacity with less energy consumption and better performance using lighter infrastructure. Featuring a number of new additions and improvements, our Cloud RAN portfolio is another step towards a best-in-class sustainable portfolio with excellent performance and lower embodied carbon emissions.

Helping our Cloud RAN customers

Many of our customers are coming at the subject of energy efficiency from the point of view of their legacy networks; they want to re-use whatever they can, if possible, but they also want to implement a future-proof, energy-efficient solution that can be scaled over time.

From the perspective of both the environment and their bottom line, they want waste to be reduced to the absolute minimum; regardless which path our customers take – purpose-built RAN, Cloud RAN, or a combination of both – we guide them to ensure that they maximize the energy efficiency of their chosen solution.

For most mobile networks over 80% of energy is consumed in the radio access network, and the remainder in the core network, support systems and associated cloud infrastructure.

Of that estimated 80 percent used by the RAN, around 80 percent of that energy is used to power the radios, with the other 20 percent going to the distributed unit (DU) – this represents a major percentage of the total energy consumption of the network.

As a result, we have a relentless focus on how our industry-leading radios can be optimized for performance, energy usage and embodied carbon emissions, regardless of whether they are deployed in an integrated or Cloud RAN setting.

Our newest radios are our most energy-efficient yet, offering 39 percent energy savings compared to previous hardware generations as per our Sustainability & Corporate Responsibility Report for 2022. Furthermore, with our energy saving software we have achieved substantial additional energy savings.

We have also proven in the field that with our 5G Massive MIMO radios we can be 13 times more energy-efficient compared to 4G, meaning that they can transmit 13 times more data for the same amount of energy consumed. That is the gigabyte economy, and we are reducing the cost per gigabyte as you can see in the graph below.

Another key area in Cloud RAN is the Cloud RAN Distributed Unit (Cloud RAN DU or vDU), and this offers another opportunity to improve energy efficiency.

The approach here is to leverage both the hardware and the software capabilities to reduce energy consumption even further, while maintaining and improving network performance.

This is achieved by balancing the leveraging of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware with the cloud computing platform and innovative algorithm designs to achieve savings across platforms and generations. The cadence of the generational evolution of the compute CPU is much faster and enables it to catch up and keep pace with purpose-built hardware.

As the technology evolves, we see a possible trajectory that would see capacities double from generation to generation, all while maintaining the same energy consumption.

Collaboration key to maximizing energy efficiency

Working closely within the Cloud RAN ecosystem and a variety of software and hardware partners such as Intel and AMD (CPU providers) Red Hat (containers-as-a-service, or CaaS), HPE and Dell (servers), Ericsson continues to lead the way in bringing new Cloud RAN innovations to market.

On the hardware front, Ericsson is engaged in these ecosystem collaborations to maximize the efficiency of hardware by offering a choice of energy-efficient servers and accelerators. This also enables us to take advantage of the larger cloud computing ecosystem to apply our software to the most power-efficient compute platform.

With new hardware generations such as the Intel® 4th Generation Xeon® Enhanced Edge, we have managed a significantly higher capacity using the same energy consumption, based on the initial setups, and we are working on similar projects with AMD. This work within the ecosystem will bring further innovation and diversity in the industry that will further improve energy efficiency.

Cloud RAN software features that help reduce energy consumption

Hardware is only part of the story – there is always going to be a base level of energy required, even at the lowest levels, to maintain contact with the rest of the network, so the real savings are to be found in monitoring, analyzing and optimizing the network in real time to ensure that the hardware is performing exactly as it should.

Ericsson has been at the forefront of ecosystem collaboration, working with partners to create software features for the Cloud RAN DU that drastically lowers energy consumption while maintaining performance. This is part of a wider collaborative effort to develop a software ecosystem that drastically improves energy efficiency, providing a template for what the networks of the future will look like.

The adoption of Intel’s Real Time Dynamic scaling of CPU cores with C-state technology is a great example of bringing cloud technology to the RAN Market. This allows further energy efficiency to be achieved.

As an example – working together with Intel and building using their C-state management technology enables us to lower energy consumption in the Cloud RAN DU using our algorithm.

This Ericsson algorithm enables energy savings while safeguarding performance, and it is a natural choice to move CPUs to sleep mode outside of peak hours when traffic is not expected. However, the network must be capable of waking up again in an instant to ensure that no traffic will be blocked or lost if demand suddenly increases.

​This application is the first step in Ericsson’s energy-saving feature and is based on traffic prediction. This allows for the dynamic management of the working state of each core to save energy while maintaining throughput performance.

Based on its knowledge of what is happening in the network, the application can dynamically adjust the compute resources it requires, – not only does this provide energy savings of up to 20 percent during periods of less demand, it also provides up to 10 percent energy savings during busy periods.

Ecosystem partnerships around both hardware and software are key to improving energy efficiency, safeguarding capacity, and reduced energy consumption in Cloud RAN DU with no drop-off in performance is made possible by using partner technologies. The disaggregation and openness of Cloud RAN is a requirement for multilateral collaboration to improve energy efficiency.

rApps for network optimization – the “secret sauce” for Open RAN network sustainability

In recent times Ericsson has released a number of rApps that address the need for automated non- Real Time network management, and these can be used to reduce operational costs, improve network performance and reduce energy consumption.

These rApps are applications designed for automation and optimization, and they are deployed and managed on the non-real time RAN Intelligent Controller (RIC) in the Service Management and Orchestration platform (SMO), Ericsson Intelligent Automation Platform is the SMO realization following O-RAN specifications but with additional capabilities. Ericsson envisions the architecture with the EIAP as future evolution of networks enabling an open ecosystem with rApps that can be also developed by partners and developers to foster innovation.

Ericsson is developing rApps as cloud-native software applications that can benefit from using AI to improve the performance of the radio network functions at scale, in both purpose-built and Open RAN architectures.

The latest rApps for energy efficiency are the evolution of Ericsson network services in the new Open RAN architecture, maintaining preemption and prediction principles to secure the highest level of service support required for 5G.

CSPs can leverage rApps to reduce their operational costs, improve network performance and reduce energy consumption, making these apps the “secret sauce” when it comes to network energy efficiency and sustainability.

Ericsson’s RAN Energy Cockpit rApp monitors the energy efficiency of the RAN. By detecting the causes of energy inefficiencies, it enables faster resolution of issues. This helps operational teams to not only detect inefficiencies, but also to isolate faults for root cause analysis and produce recommendations for resolutions, thanks to accurate insights which are available promptly and with minimal effort. This rApp can run in both open and closed loops to empower the operations team according to the service provider´s preference.

The RAN Energy Control rApp creates an autonomous mechanism using artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) technologies and closed-loop automation to reduce daily radio network energy consumption by up to 25 percent, with zero impact on user experience.

The benefits of this rApp are twofold. Firstly, energy savings are enabled by the smart activation or deactivation of energy-saving features, and secondly traffic is protected by the continuous training of the ML algorithm governing the energy savings. In other words, traffic demand is taken into consideration to activate or deactivate energy-saving features to get the best results without impacting on user experience.

Both solutions enable the network to operate intelligently, simplifying the operations to reduce energy consumption and improve performance with intelligent automation. Perhaps most importantly, they operate with a high degree of autonomy, requiring little or no human interaction.

Two-track approach

There are two RAN architectures – Integrated RAN and Cloud RAN – and for both, we can use our energy-efficient radios and our optimization solutions in the form of rApps for both purpose-built and Cloud RAN.

Ericsson’s aim is to have energy-efficient end-to-end systems, and in every architecture, this means that, aside from the radio units, we need to ensure optimum energy consumption in Cloud RAN DU and Cloud RAN CU.

On the hardware side, the Intel® vRAN Gen over Gen Platforms deliver twice the capacity using the same amount of energy. In terms of software features, Ericsson has implemented mechanisms to exploit Intel’s Real Time Dynamic scaling of CPU cores with C-state technology, managing power savings up to 20% while eliminating the risk of Block Error Rate (BLER).

The algorithm is powerful and responsive, and it guarantees in real-time a small headroom of non-sleeping CPU above the current instantaneous traffic level to cope with sudden or any unexpected traffic demand increase. This headroom can be controlled by upper layers to hold traffic for short periods in order to eliminate the risk of BLER.

Ericsson solutions – with energy efficiency built in

Ericsson has long understood which direction things are going when it comes to energy efficiency; both the planet and our customers need solutions that deliver the service they have come to expect in the most efficient manner possible, and for that reason, we are partnering with our customers to lower the carbon emissions across the value chain. We are constantly researching and developing new innovations and pushing technology to maximize energy efficiency and performance, and many of the results have already been rolled out around the world.

The ambitious goals of Net Zero by 2040 require ambitious designs and solutions, and we believe that every day is bringing us closer to those goals. Together with our partners, our customers, and the rest of the ICT industry, we are working to boost energy savings as a way to achieve Net Zero as our contribution to the fight against climate change.

The days of plugging in a radio and letting it run 24/7 to provide connectivity are long gone – no-one in the industry is prepared to turn on the heating and leave their windows open any longer.

Together with our customers and our partners, we are driving the development of the technologies that ensure that we can build a future based on the most sustainable idea of all – that of doing more with less.

Originally published on Built from Scratch

The Home Depot and our associates remember and honor Faye Wilson, an industry trailblazer who was instrumental in our company’s expansion, a champion of The Home Depot’s culture, and our first female board director. She passed away Monday, July 10.

“Wilson is a reserved, unassuming woman who doesn’t look like a powerhouse, but she speaks with great passion,” said Home Depot founders Arthur Blank and Bernie Marcus in their book, “Built from Scratch”. “She is an articulate woman who is not afraid to stand up and be heard.”

Wilson, who had a 21-year career with Bank of America, secured funding to grow The Home Depot from 19 stores to 100 stores with Blank and Marcus. When banks began dropping out of an early financing round, Wilson worked around the clock and put her job on the line to convince her bank’s loan officer to fund the company’s expansion. In “Built from Scratch”, Blank and Marcus say, “…she literally saved our company. …” They would commonly refer to Wilson as their “tower of strength.”

When Marcus and Blank set their sights on a 500-store expansion, they knew they needed Wilson as a member of the team. They asked her to join the board of directors, where she served from 1992 through 2001. Wilson joined The Home Depot as senior vice president (SVP) of value initiatives in 1998 and later became SVP of risk management. During her tenure, she created The Home Depot’s values wheel, which today appears on every Home Depot apron, throughout our buildings and facilities, and is a critical representation of the company’s culture. 

“She understood who we were, how we ran our business, the culture – she understood everything about The Home Depot,” said Blank in “Built from Scratch”. “She also loved to be in our stores. This was a woman who loved The Home Depot as much as we did.”

Keep up with all the latest Home Depot news! Subscribe to our bi-weekly news update and get the top “Built from Scratch” stories delivered straight to your inbox.

Director of Higg Products, Aaron Di Silvestro, spoke at the Sustainable Apparel and Textiles Conference, which took place in New York on June 21 – 22. The event, which the Sustainable Apparel Coalition partnered on with Innovation Forum, brought industry experts to discuss the urgency with which brands need to align their practices with growing stakeholder expectations and develop strategies for achieving net-zero, transforming supply chains, engaging consumers, scaling circularity, and driving positive social impacts.

Speaking on a panel titled, Material dilemmas: How to obtain credible data on the full impact of material decisions, Di Silvestro joined Alon Schnitzer, Sustainable Packaging Expert, Solutum, and Shashi Menon, CEO, EcoEngineers, to discuss challenges in obtaining credible data on the full impact of material decisions and how the industry can collaborate to address this.

The discussion kicked off with the panelists identifying a number of major challenges facing the industry such as understanding what data needs to be collected in order to make credible claims. They agreed that the lack of a clear and widely accepted industry methodology for making claims results in a lack of clarity on what data is needed.

Lack of collaborative processes for data collection and analysis was another identified challenge Often, this results in industry members independently pursuing work that has already been completed, leading to divergent methodologies that reduce credibility and increase the cost of obtaining and using data. The panelists also identified a lack of clarity and agreement around what “impact” means. This leaves any data, no matter how well founded, open to critique.

The panel went on to discuss opportunities for the industry to address these challenges and agreed that industry collaboration is necessary to reduce duplicative work around data gathering and analysis in order to clearly define what impacts should be measured and communicated and how. The panelists highlighted risks that the textile and apparel, packaging, and energy transition industries could face by deciding to wait on guidance from regulators to determine the nature of credible data, which could ultimately end up being insufficient to drive progress.

Instead, the panel suggested specific solutions – including the use of Open Supply Hub identifiers in internal and external industry data sets, as well as aligning on LCA and emission factor data sources – to help industry players identify and align on what credible data is and how it can be obtained.

The panel discussion featured a number of questions from attendees relating to the interplay between credibility and quality. It was evident from the discussions that there is a critical need to align on the quality of data before making decisions.

The panelists also agreed that data quality is only a single part of the credibility equation and that it is critical to ensure that data is run through the same models, then compared and used in similar ways, which is as – if not more – important than increasing the accuracy of our existing data points.

The discussion concluded with the panelists agreeing that there are concrete actions industry players can take to both obtain credible data and define the data they need. Finally, the panelists called for collaboration across the industry and again stressed the importance of credible data to incentivize the industry.

Originally published on Rayonier.com

A forestry major offers a wide range of high-demand job opportunities in a field that plays an important role in carbon sequestration, protecting threatened and endangered species, and improving air and water quality. 

Ask a dozen forestry students how they discovered their field, and at least half will tell you they never heard of forestry until college.

Looking for a career that makes a positive impact on the world, college students are increasingly drawn to environmental and nature-related studies across the U.S. However, forestry, one of the higher-demand, better-paying fields in the natural resources realm, is lesser-known.

“If you want to protect the environment, work with wildlife, improve water and air quality, and reduce carbon in the world around you, forestry offers all of those things,” says Shelby Pyatt, Rayonier’s Vice President of Human Resources and IT.

A Mission to Attract More Students to Forestry 

It’s Rayonier’s hope that the next generation of students discover forestry sooner. The field offers a variety of opportunities for students, regardless of whether they’re the “outdoorsy” type.

“There are so many sides to it,” Shelby says. “There truly is something for everyone in this field.”

Forestry graduates have the option to work outdoors in the woods, or to dig deep into forecasting models and crunch numbers on what the future may hold as the trees grow. A forester may work in a public-private partnerships to protect important water sources or work to conserve a special forest where a rare plant thrives. Identifying and protecting wildlife habitat is an integral part of forestry. And tech lovers can actively use tools like LiDAR, drones and GIS mapping software.

In an effort to help students understand the rich breadth and depth of what forestry has to offer sooner, Shelby says Rayonier is working to reach students at the high school and middle school level by partnering with schools, communities and other forestry organizations.

Watch a video of the event here.

So What Exactly is Forestry? 

Forestry is a unique mix of art and science.

The science part uses biology, chemistry, math and ecology to inform a forester’s decisions about how best to care for the forest ecosystem. But, as explained by the University of Kentucky’s Forestry and Natural Resources site, science is only part of the decision-making process:

Foresters must apply their knowledge in a decision-making arena where good solutions are not always obvious, conflicting human interests must be considered, and conflicting opinions must be compromised. This need for experienced judgment, diplomacy and tact constitutes the art of forestry.

“At Rayonier, we provide our foresters with a lot of tools to get the data they need, but we also trust them to balance that with the experiences they have in the field,” Shelby explains. “They make thoughtful decisions that balance all of the factors involved.”

For example, a forester may consider data on the soil type, topography and wildlife habitat when deciding which type of trees to plant and what planting method to use in a particular area. But after walking in neighboring forests, the forester may observe something about the microclimate or the growth and health of neighboring trees that impacts that plan.

What Types of Careers Can Foresters Choose? 

The best thing about a career in forestry, according to Craig Blair, President and CEO of Resource Management Service, is that there really is a place for everyone—no matter their interests, skill sets, or career goals.

“You don’t have to have a history of love for the outdoors or exposure to the outdoors to find a great career in forestry,” he says. “No matter what your talents are, there’s a career path in this business because it is just so diverse.”

This chart outlines some of the options, depending on a student’s area of interest:

If you like…You could be a…ScienceSoil Scientist working both in the lab and in the field to understand and protect soil health.BiologyWildlife Biologist. Forests are home to living species large and small. Wildlife biologists understand habitats and how forestry impacts the animals within.STEMForestry is filled with STEM-based career possibilities, including advisors who use technology to find patterns in nature and forecast how things like climate change may affect ecosystems.PoliticsAdvocate or lobby, impacting policy and laws around conservation and forest management.Business/Economics In Forest Operations, you can manage public or private lands, timber harvesting operations, work with landowners to assess value, and more.PhilanthropyAs a Land Conservation Specialist, you can work toward the protection and preservation of green spaces as well as the health and longevity of our nation’s forests.The OutdoorsAs a Forest Manager or Silviculturist, you’ll focus on the health of forests and how to care for and cultivate them.AdventureWildland Firefighters and Fire Ecologists both work with fire to manage prescribed burns as well as prevent and stop wildfires.

 

The way Blair sees it, the possibilities are many and the future is bright.

“Right now, it is a seller’s market if you’re a smart forestry graduate, and it’s been that way for a while. … I think there are a lot of growth areas in this field that will create opportunities for bright, passionate people to have challenging careers to look back on when they’re done and feel like they’ve made a difference.”

Lack of Awareness One of the Biggest Challenges in Forestry

It’s an interesting field, but one where most of the work takes place deep in the woods, where few get to see how it works. Many forestry representatives have an uphill climb when introducing future college students to the field.

“I went to speak at a high school in Knightdale, North Carolina,” recalls Sam Cook, executive director of forest assets at NC State University. “I bet you it was close to 75 kids, and 90 percent were minorities. They were only talking about environmental science and social justice. They had no knowledge of the word forestry.”

Sam is working to build a program with that same school focused on forest literacy and introducing high schoolers to the concept of a career in forestry. Having “stumbled upon” forestry, himself, more than 30 years ago, he relishes spreading the word about forestry degrees and careers.

“Forestry was not even on my radar when I was their age, but it’s been the best thing that ever happened to me in my whole career,” he says.

When he was in high school, Sam’s sister encouraged him to look into a forestry degree at Tuskegee University, where he could leverage his love of the outdoors into a meaningful career. It wasn’t until his second year in the program during an internship with International Paper that he realized he’d been living in a forestry household all along.

“My dad and brother both worked for a paper mill. I had no idea that the forest industry was impacting what they do every day, because nobody came home and talked about what they did,” he says. “That internship opened my eyes to the connecting points between trees being grown and harvested, delivered to a mill, processed and coming out with a finished product. And I could see myself in the food chain.”

Sam finished his forestry degree at NC State and built a career working across the forestry industry for private companies, nonprofit organizations and the government before taking his role in forestry education.

Is Forestry A Viable Path? 

Once students are introduced to forestry as a possible degree, Sam likes to walk students and their parents or caregivers through the ins and outs of a degree in forestry. He often finds himself in conversation around a table with a parent who wants their child to be a doctor, lawyer or engineer. It’s his job to introduce them to an equally viable career path in forestry.

“I shape what we do in forestry around those three aspects: We offer forest engineers, forest ecologists, forest biologists. You can be a forester and get into social science if you want to just do research and deal with people,” he says. “I’ll walk through the many types of jobs and opportunities as it relates to forestry, and I showcase to them the many different people out there that are doing these jobs with a forestry degree.”

Learn more in this article about tree grafting.

As for earning potential, Sam lays it out clearly for potential students and their caregivers.

“If you come out your first year and you start working for the government, you may end up with a salary offer of about $35,000 to $40,000 with benefits,” he says. “In private industry, a typical starting salary is somewhere between $55,000 and—if they have a master’s—it can get as high as $65,000. How many people leave their first year and possibly get a brand-new vehicle, a paid cell phone, and a good salary? And to get to be out in the woods and set your own day?”

It’s not just “cutting trees”

Sam says misconceptions about what foresters do and even what the industry stands for has been one of the toughest challenges in attracting students.

“Most people, when they think about forestry, it is no different than what I was thinking about when I was growing up,” he says. “The forester to me was the person out there cutting the trees.”

And isn’t cutting trees a bad thing?

In truth, foresters by trade are committed to understanding forest ecosystems and working out sustainable ways to use and replace forest materials. Foresters plant multiple trees for every tree they harvest, then nurture that crop for decades before the logs go to market. And only so many trees are cleared from one area at a time, ensuring the ecosystem remains for wildlife.

Meanwhile, the products from the forest end up everywhere: from the wood used to build furniture and houses, to paper products like toilet paper and cardboard, to 1000s of lesser-known products that depend on the forest, such as diapers, touch screen phones, medicines, paints, bath products and countless others. Is it any wonder the field is in such high demand?

Changing misconceptions can be slow work, and Sam believes it should start even before students are picking a college major. One organization making headway in student education is the Sustainable Forestry Initiative. In 2017, SFI partnered with Project Learning Tree to create a forest literacy and environmental education curriculum designed for early childhood, elementary, middle and high school students.

“That really helps change the narrative as it relates to what we do every day,” says Sam.

As students become more aware of the importance of forestry in their everyday lives, perhaps more will see the potential in studying forestry.

“It’s a rewarding industry to be a part of,” says Rayonier’s Shelby. “You’re doing so much good for the environment, providing so many products consumers need, and you’re doing it all in a sustainable way.”

Teachers, event facilitators and guests smiled broadly when they heard a student say, “I want to do this forever, for many, many years into my future – like for my actual career!”

Molly, a junior public school student within the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) in grade five made the claim excitedly in a 25th-floor conference room crowded with about 60 students from grades four to 10. The moment came as the 2023 TDSB Go Innovate Together (goIT) program culmination was drawing to a close on June 7, 2023, at the Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) Pace Port™ innovation center in downtown Toronto.

goIT is TCS’ flagship digital innovation and career readiness program for young people. It leverages the expertise of TCS employees who volunteer to judge competitions and more, and that of teachers and community partners, who help the students connect the activities with the needs of their communities, both local and global.

“It’s just this kind of enthusiasm for science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) that goIT seeks to build,” said Adrienne Britten, goIT Liaison at TCS Canada. “We created the program’s curricula, experiences and opportunities with the TDSB specifically to empower teachers so they can introduce youth to digital innovation as a means to eventually closing the skills gap and drawing them into careers of the future.”

Molly’s excitement and confidence is proof that the program is working.

The skills gap refers to the difference between the number of available and projected future jobs in science and technology and the number of young people — especially girls — being appropriately encouraged and prepared to take them. It’s a particular concern in Canada where a 2022 study by the C.D. Howe Institute revealed a severe shortage in employees with digital and STEM skills against the rising demand for digital-oriented jobs. Researchers highlighted, among many other things, education-based solutions including:

Raising students’ performance in STEM subjects to eventually increase STEM enrolment and graduation numbersClosing the STEM gender divide by helping students make better study and career choicesEncouraging underrepresented groups to continue education in STEM fields by identifying and addressing their specific needsWorking with educational institutions to develop and expand digital skills learning, artificial intelligence (AI), and data science courses and programs

TCS and TDSB have been using goIT to approach these solutions together strategically for almost a decade.

According to Peter Singh, Executive Officer, and IT Services and Chief Technology Officer for TDSB, administrators saw the ways goIT benefited both students and teachers and embraced the program wholeheartedly. After two successful years sharing goIT with students, they decided to raise the bar on collaboration. Rather than just bring plug-and-play tools into the classroom for two days each year, they synchronized the program with District learning outcomes and made goIT a year-round offering with full and constant support. To spearhead success, the TDSB developed a team of Digital Lead Learners, more than 300 teachers who focus on helping build teacher capacity for STEM learning and embedding deep learning about technology into the district’s program. TCS supported the initiative by hiring a TDSB teacher to manage collaboration on the business side. Singh applauds the decision, describing how TCS’ deep understanding of pedagogy has boosted the program and its results.

“It takes years to build a strong practice and we did it; we have a program that is really thriving,” said Singh. “The kids love goIT and come back year after year,” he added, noting how he has enjoyed watching returning students’ development in digital literacy and as thinkers and presenters.

At the end of every goIT program, students compete with peers in their age group, sharing their concepts for digital innovations with volunteer TCS judges. TCS employee-judges look for ingenuity, creative and innovative design, and empathy. Establishing a strong link between digital innovation and global citizenship, goIT competitions require all young innovators to address one of the U.N.’s 2030 Sustainable Development Goals and to design their app concepts in a way that promises to make the world a better place. For most students, it is their first experience with corporate social responsibility (CSR).

“Judging goIT culmination events and using the time to mentor students in their projects has been an incredibly rewarding experience for me,” said TCS associate Himanshu Rao, Technical Lead for BFSI Canada and a regular goIT volunteer. “It’s an opportunity to enjoy the students’ creativity, as well as guide and support these young minds as they explore scientific concepts, develop hypotheses, conduct experiments, and analyze data. Most importantly, it’s an opportunity to celebrate their achievements, both big and small.”

The TDSB goIT culmination brought a total of 60 students between grades 4 – 10 to TCS Pace Port™ Toronto for a full day of digital exploration. Supported by eight teachers, a few parents and eight TCS volunteers, they were separated into two groups comprised of 32 senior students aged 13 to 18 and all of the juniors under the age of 12. The groups took turns presenting their concepts for digital innovations to judges. When not presenting, they gazed out at their spectacular 25th-floor view of the city, marveled at their new perspective on what it might be like to work in an office and meet in conference rooms, and took part in workshops about machine learning and AI. They even had the opportunity to teach visual and audio recognition skills to a computer.

“The students are so proud and gain so much confidence from these experiences,” said Singh. “But the rest of us get a lot out of it, too; participating in goIT brings me back to our purpose in education and the reason I come to work every day,” said Singh.

Learn more about goIT at https://tcsempowers.tcsapps.com/amer/goIT.

Water availability and water quality are declining globally. The UN University estimates that by 2030, there will be a 40% gap between water demand and availability. In the meantime, 80% of the world’s wastewater is returned to the environment untreated (UNEP, 2016). Furthermore, climate change is intensifying the water cycle – more intense rainfall and associated flooding, as well as more intense drought (IPCC, 2021) are causing certain locations to have too much water, not enough water, or both at different times of the year. Finally, the CDP has estimated that the cost of inaction on water risks is up to five times the cost of action. Our clients are aware of these challenges, and understand that the global water crisis directly translates to business risks.

In order to understand and mitigate water risks in critical operations, we recommend that our clients perform Source Water Vulnerability Assessments (SVAs) at facilities where water is essential to business continuity. Securing access to water of sufficient quantity and quality is critical to operations where water is a primary ingredient, and has been historically prioritized by food & beverage producers for that reason. However, it is important to remember that water is integral to most operations – whether for employee needs, cleaning, climate control, or as part of the production process.

What is a Source Water Vulnerability Assessment (SVA)?

An SVA is a study that assesses environmental, reputational, and regulatory risks of water source for processes. Antea Group’s Source Water Vulnerability Assessment (SVA) service offers clients a comprehensive view of a specific watershed that focuses on the impacts and dependencies on the watershed. The report:

Describes the vulnerabilities related to the reliability, quality, transmission, treatment and distribution of water;Evaluates the stakeholders represented in the watershed, the regulatory and water management watch points, and the risks posed to the surrounding community that is dependent on that source water; andPresents mitigation strategies to support the advancement of water stewardship within the watershed.

Through the SVA, we aim to ensure that the water source is managed to protect the quality of the product and ensure the sustainability and continuity of the water supply for facility operations. The SVA also considers whether the water quality and quantity are sufficient to support both the current and future operations.

How SVA fits into the AWS Standard 

Antea Group has aligned our SVA approach to Step 1 of the Alliance for Water Stewardship (AWS) Standard, “Gather and Understand”, which focuses on collecting reliable data on shared water challenges in the catchments in which the company operates. The AWS Standard is a globally applicable, voluntary sustainability standard that takes users through a process to identify and understand site and catchment water risks, and then act. The AWS Standard was developed through a four-year global, multi-stakeholder consultation seeking a framework that could be implemented by any site, in any sector, in any catchment around the world. As an ISEAL Community Member, the Alliance for Water Stewardship is working to continually improve its system, and is the only framework focused on water that is fully ISEAL Code Compliant. The Standard guides water users to work collaboratively and transparently towards sustainable water management within a catchment context, and is intended to drive social, environmental, and economic benefits at the scale of a catchment.

Inogen Alliance recently sponsored the AWS Forum which brings together global experts for presentations and discussion on water stewardship.

It is our responsibility to help our clients approach water risks strategically, and help them identify and mitigate those risks, both to safeguard their business continuity and the communities that they operate in.

“Water is the ultimate shared resource and we can only manage it sustainably if all water users in a river basin work together” – WWF

Learn more about our global water stewardship services here.

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